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| SOUTH
COAST REPERTORY THEATER SPECS RENKUS-HEINZ |
By Mike Lethby and Sarah James |
| The South Coast Repertory Theater
in Costa Mesa, CA may be compact at 300 seats, but lacks little
in terms either of prestige or high technology.
Its new Segerstrom wing, designed by Cesar Pelli
with working architects Snyder Langston and
theatrical systems by Theater Projects Consultants,
led by Benton Delinger, features a versatile
Renkus- Heinz based, LCS-controlled auditorium audio
system.Working with the theater is the Orange Country
Performing Arts Center, also Costa Mesa-based. Head of Audio
for South Coast Rep is B.C. Keller. |
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Designed by Dave Clark and
Martin van Dijk at Engineering Harmonics
of Toronto and installed by Sound Image’s
Scott Oosthuizen and Jason Schwar tzel,
the system was specified, as envisioned by Keller, to provide
the versatility essential to allow the theater to host a broad
spectrum of productions and events including regular theater,
experimental workshops, musicals and concerts.
It has a main level, trap room and a balcony, together with
the regular lobby, backstage and production areas. Scott
Oosthuizen comments: |
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“It’s definitely
a very high tech install for a regional repertory theater
complex: it’s quite small but very advanced. Technically,
the most significant challenge for us was the physical one
of accommodating everything, particularly the cabling, in
a ver y tight space.”
And space dictated a small but powerful system:
“The main system needed to be very compact but
also to have full large-scale capabilities, with full audio
playback bandwidth, high power and clear sound.”
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At the heart of the system
is a pair of Matrix 3 processor racks, Level
Control Systems’ third generation automated audio control
system. As standard it provides flexible I/O, system expansion,
audio playback, and signal processing including compressor/limiters,
parametric EQs, delays, multi-dimensional panning, and comprehensive
external control.
To meet Keller’s requirements, Clark also specified
LCS’s optional 16-track record/playback system, Wild
Tracks™, used principally to deliver sound
effects on cue. “We designed the sound system
to be completely flexible,” says Clark, “and
to support the use of LCS, so it has two LCS Matrix 3 systems”
On the receiving end of these is a Renkus- Heinz surround
sound system featuring a mixture of products from Renkus-Heinz’s
standard product range, and other contractor products that
were built to order.
In the latter category, six SR5/6
full-range loudspeakers are ranged across the top of the proscenium
arch, with 18 TRC61
cabinets providing the surround elements and four SR62Hs
deployed as front fill speakers, rounded off by a pair of
Renkus-Heinz DRS18-1V
subwoofers - one mounted in a catwalk, the other a portable
addition which is sited depending on the sonic requirements
of an individual production. Dave Clark says,
“The system design means that South Coast Rep
can mount every type of production that they originally envisaged,
maximizing the use of the facility without having to compromise
whether it’s music or speech.” |
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